Thirty years later, Linux rules IT. Almost all major websites – including Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia – run on Linux. It’s the same with the clouds. Even on Microsoft’s own Azure, the most popular operating system is Linux. As for supercomputers, all 500 of the world’s fastest 500 supercomputers run Linux. Thanks to Android, Linux is also the most popular end-user operating system. Not bad for a hobby operating system! Also: Linus Torvalds: Get ready for another 30 years of Linux Torvalds and I have talked about Linux and its history, and he’s both pleased and bemused by Linux’s rise. But, as for the operating system’s birthday, Torvalds said, you can argue it has four birthdays: In those early days, Torvalds was encouraged by his professors at the University of Helsinki. “So, both of them work for me. Or either. “And, by the way, some people will argue for yet other days. For example, the earliest public semi-mention of Linux was July 3: that was the first time I asked for some POSIX docs publicly on the Minix newsgroup and mentioned I was working on a project (but didn’t name it). And at the other end, October 5 was the first time I actually publicly announced a Linux version: “version 0.02 (+1 (very small) patch already.” It didn’t take long for Torvalds to realize that his little project wasn’t going to stay little for long. By the end of 1991, it was gaining more attention than the still-born GNU Hurd or Minix [Andrew Tannenbaum’s ground-breaking free software educational Unix operating system]. Torvalds explained: The term for what was happening with Linux hadn’t been invented yet. Today, we know it as open-source. This concept of developers working together on jointly held and managed code became the single most important software development method in history. While Linux would not have existed without Linus, influential early Linux developers such as Theodore Ts’o, James Bottomley, Gerald Pfeifer, and Greg Kroah-Hartman were also vital to its growth. “That wasn’t exactly radical (people had made Minix extensions that did paging etc), but it was a sign that Linux was starting to do things that I wasn’t used to Minix doing. “By summer 1992, we had X running and Linux just looked like a completely different animal from the Minix I had grown used to (but I don’t even know what Minix did afterward). “The rest happened pretty gradually and never really hit me as being as exceptional as the early 1992 realization that there were actually people I didn’t know who were using and tinkering with Linux.” Even as Linux was picking up steam, Torvalds didn’t see where it was going. “The ‘91 model year Linus really didn’t think 30 years ahead, and if he had, he wouldn’t have thought that the experiment he was working on would be around at all. Other projects seemed much more serious.” In those very first days, Linux wasn’t formally known as Linux. Torvalds explained, “Linux was my working name, but I never wanted to release it as Linux. Linux was a perfect working name, but if I actually used it as the official one, people would think that I am an egomaniac and wouldn’t take it seriously. So I chose this very bad name, “Freax,” for “Free Unix.” Fortunately, the first Linux administrator Ari Lemmk, decided Freax was a silly name too. Hence, he actually named it Linux because he thought this internal project name was Torvalds first choice. Looking back at it all, Torvalds said he usually thinks “some of the early stuff that really probably isn’t all that big deal anymore, but that felt big to me just because they were surprised and/or important at the time.” Also: That Linux lawsuit: 20 years later, SCO vs IBM may finally be ending For example, “personally, 0.03 was a big step, which is when Linux became self-hosting for the first time, I think. And 0.12 was when suddenly it was almost useful to some people, and you could actually do some limited real work with it (and when the aforementioned “hey, people I don’t know are using it” happened). Admittedly you had to be pretty hardcore to play around with it, but there are still active kernel developers around from that timeframe.” Trying to look at the bigger picture, Torvalds now thinks the period in early 1992 – when Linux switched to using the Gnu Public License version 2 (GPLv2) – was especially important. He recalls, “It wasn’t the original license, but I’m convinced it’s a big part of why Linux became so widespread. Not everybody loves the GPL, and I’ve had my own issues with the FSF [Free Software Foundation], but I do think the GPLv2 has been a huge deal, and people shouldn’t dismiss the licensing issues.” He adds: But, the commercial interest in Linux has been important. Indeed, Torvalds has told me that it was only after he created Git that he felt like a successful programmer. After that, he no longer needed to fear that Linux was a one-off. “There have been the purely technical ones. That’s been so constant that it’s hard to point to anything really particular. I think the first ports to other architectures were perhaps conceptually one of the biggest steps (and particularly the Linux/alpha port) because it changed the whole target landscape. “Of course, the version control systems (CVS) “BitKeeper, and then obviously Git, were both big steps, simply because of how they changed my ability to manage the source code. A few corners of the kernel tree had tried CVS [Concurrent Versions System], but it really wasn’t a useful tool for something that distributed. So BK and git didn’t change the kernel directly, but made some of the progress possible indirectly.” Looking ahead, Torvalds sees himself keeping on, “I’m 51 years young, I enjoy what I’m doing. What would I do if I didn’t do Linux? Puttering around in the garden? Not bloody likely. You could ask me again in a couple of years when the kids are all flown (one done, one doing graduate studies, one still undergrad). Not that I expect that gardening will look any more likely than either, but you can ask.” Related Stories:
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